INS 028         Sovereign Forest         Amar Kanwar         2012

Header image: documenta 13, Kassel © Henrik Stromberg
Text: Bildmuseet

The Sovereign Forest is a poetic response to the conflict over land and the resistance of local communities in the Indian state of Odisha. As governments and corporations have moved in to extract natural resources and build new industrial areas, the local populations have resisted and tried to protect their agricultural lands, forests and livelihoods.
The Sovereign Forest bears witness to this conflict as it initiates a creative response to our understanding of crime, politics, human rights and ecology. The validity of poetry as evidence in a trial, the discourse on seeing, on compassion, justice and the determination of the self - all come together in a constellation of films, seeds, books, texts, and photographs.

© Stuart Armitt, Edinburgh Art Festival

© Henrik Stromberg 

© Stuart Armitt, Edinburgh Art Festival